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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22645117">I Was Housed by Your Warmth</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/daisygrl/pseuds/daisygrl'>daisygrl</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (TV 2018)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, F/F, Hurt/Comfort</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 12:41:16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,603</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22645117</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/daisygrl/pseuds/daisygrl</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>"Something about the other witch pulled her ever closer, made her ache inside. It was the strangest sensation: two parts nostalgia and one part pain. If she had lived lives other than this one, she would have sworn that they had met before. Perhaps their souls had passed one another by as they swam in the primordial muck."</p>
<p>A fix-it fic for Zelda and Lilith.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Zelda Spellman/Mary Wardwell | Madam Satan | Lilith</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>81</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Madam Spellman 2020 Challenge</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>I Was Housed by Your Warmth</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Title comes from "Shrike" by Hozier.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Lilith? What in the heaven are you doing here? What’s wrong?” Zelda’s voice skittered across the marble floor. She stopped in front of the stairs and turned to face her guest.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Lilith took off her sunglasses, meeting Zelda’s dark, guarded eyes. The other witch stood in front of her with her arms crossed. Everything about her body language was tailored, whether consciously or not, to push intruders out of her domain. It was exciting, and she was more than up to the challenge. After all, during those hazy decades after her expulsion from the garden, she had been a huntress - and a good one. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>She had two options. She could put some time and energy into gaining Zelda’s trust so that they could become closer. As partners. As equals. It was an idea she had already been toying with for months. Something about the other witch pulled her ever closer, made her ache inside. It was the strangest sensation: two parts nostalgia and one part pain. If she had lived lives other than this one, she would have sworn that they had met before. Perhaps their souls had passed one another by as they swam in the primordial muck.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> If that didn’t work, then she would have no choice but to present herself as completely non-threatening, so as to be able to approach the coven without causing so much as a ripple in the grass. Millenia of negotiating Satan’s explosive cruelty had prepared her for that. However, she didn’t relish the idea of lying on her back with her belly exposed just yet. It was difficult to read Zelda in the best of times, and it was starting to seem like her work would be cut out for her. If Zelda wanted to dance, then that’s what they would have to do.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Her voice wavered slightly. “You know very well. Lucifer walks free.” Fear leaked into her voice despite her best efforts. “Don’t you think he’ll take vengeance upon us?” She watched Zelda take a long drag on her cigarette, the furrow between her brows deepening in confusion. She tried again, softer this time. “The Dark Lord is not known to forgive and forget.” To admit she needed help put her in a vulnerable position, and it wasn’t the way she had imagined her first meaningful interaction with Zelda going. The prayer Zelda had delivered unto her, tender and vulnerable, rang in her ears for a moment. <em> Not the first </em>. She drew a shaky breath. “I’ve already received a threat. I need asylum.” </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Zelda looked at her for a long moment. She took a slow puff of smoke and released it slowly, visibly upset. “I’m afraid I can’t offer you that.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Silence, so intense that Lilith could feel it pulsing in her ears. She shook her head in disbelief. “What? But...you worship me.You <em> prayed </em> to me!” A wave of hurt hit her, wide and sharp as saltwater.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> As if sensing her panic, Zelda stepped forward, closing the distance between them in three short strides. Up close, she could see more clearly the fear in Zelda’s eyes, could hear the short, anxious breaths that she was trying desperately to control.<em> Is it me she’s afraid of? </em>Lilith stood before her, still and silent so as not to ignite a skittish spark. The inferno boiled over anyhow.</p>
<p>Cold eyes met hers, unflinching and shrouded in a screen of cigarette smoke. “And what good has that done us?” </p>
<p>***</p>
<p>“Don’t call me that! I’m <em> not </em>Lady Blackwood!” The slap echoes across the chamber and climbs back up into Zelda’s skull, ringing in her ears. Instantly, her face feels too warm, her collar too stiff and itchy, and tears are pricking at her eyes. She wants to apologize, but she’s frozen in shame, too embarrassed to draw breath. Hilda sweeps in, takes her harshly by the elbow. She wants to know what happened, why Zelda lost control of herself in front of all her students. It’s a fair question.</p>
<p>All she can do is shrug and stare, because her body is coated in a cold sweat, and the room is spinning even though she has been eased into a chair. Hilda is talking at her as if from behind thick glass. She can’t hear what is being said to her because the world is distorted and quaking, shuddering slightly every time she moves, and disjointed notes come together and meld into a tinkling cacophony that refuses to release her. Hilda shakes her shoulders as hard as she can. </p>
<p>She closes her eyes and begs for lucidity. First to Satan - old habits don’t seem to die - then to Lilith. When the silence dissolves into static, she calls to whomever happens to be prowling the astral plane. It doesn’t make a difference now, just as it hadn’t the first, second and thousandth times. Her mind and her body are so disjointed that nothing in heaven nor hell will stitch her together, and the anger leaking out through the cracks is so strong, so bilious, she’s sure Hilda can smell it.</p>
<p><em> I don’t understand why they don’t... respect me. </em> Ice water pools in her belly, reverberates through her chest. <em> Is it because they saw me when I was that </em> thing <em> ? That wasn’t me!  </em></p>
<p>“That wasn’t me. I’ve never… I would never do that.”</p>
<p>“Who was it then? If not you, then who?"</p>
<p>She doesn’t have an answer.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>Lilith stares at Zelda for a moment, trying to find a flicker of empathy or even pity in the other witch’s face. Anything that she can coax into a moment of tenderness. The ash of Zelda’s cigarette crawls back towards the filter, eaten up by a greedy ember. Finally, Lilith sighs. It’s deep and heavy, forged in a pain so ancient that Zelda is struck momentarily dumb by the sheer weight of it. </p>
<p>“Please. I’m so tired of being scared.”</p>
<p>Even to herself, she is loath to admit that she needs help. </p>
<p>***</p>
<p>Thousands of years have come and gone, and every decade feels more and more like the blink of an eye. She doesn’t remember a time when she wasn’t afraid. </p>
<p>The garden flickers before her eyes for a moment, then vanishes. The time she spent there is nothing more than a flash of green, a memory that pales as time speeds up and spills over. Her grief, hot and dense in her chest, is eternal. An endless lifetime spent mourning a before that she barely remembers, and an after that consumes and regurgitates her. </p>
<p>If nothing else, it is stable. She mothers her pain the same way she does all the demons she has birthed. Heavy in her arms, raucous until she tends to it. It’s always the same exercise, and she’s performed it a thousand times. Fear, on the other hand, is precarious. She watches as Lucifer struggles against the bonds of various flesh acherons and realizes that it’s a matter of when, not if. The simmering tension that has shaped her existence is supplanted by something much more volatile, and it has made her deaf to the prayers of those she swore to protect. Nothing personal. It’s a matter of survival.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>Zelda finds herself nodding slowly, swimming among her own prayers and adjuration, the countless times she offered up her life and her sanity to countless silent deities in exchange for a moment of respite that no one ever seemed able to give her.</p>
<p> That same desperation is magnified a thousand times in Lilith’s wide eyes, and Zelda’s chest hurts when she finally recognizes it. She takes Lilith by the hand, noting that, for the first time, the other woman doesn’t flinch at another person’s touch. </p>
<p>“It’s alright. You’re safe here.”</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>Lilith followed Zelda mutely into the kitchen, gripping her hand tightly and wiping the wetness on her cheeks with the other. Zelda took one of the chairs and moved it around the corner of the breakfast table, arranging them so that they could sit beside one another. </p>
<p>They sat and looked at one another for a moment. Zelda cleared her throat. “Tea?” Lilith nodded. She watched as Zelda moved deftly around the kitchen, rummaging through various jars and setting out dishes of sugar, milk and cream. She smiled weakly as she watched Zelda stir too many sugar cubes into her cup, enjoying the sound they made as they cracked and dissolved in the amber liquid. </p>
<p>“I’m sorry I never answered you.”</p>
<p>Zelda stopped stirring, lay down her spoon, and sighed. “I know.” </p>
<p>Lilith looked down at her hands. “I wanted to.” She paused for a second. “Actually, that’s not quite true. I wanted to want to. I just -” she said, sniffling. “I wasn’t thinking about you. I wasn’t thinking about anyone, really.”</p>
<p>The other witch tilted her head to the side and studied her for a moment. “I hated you sometimes. Did you know that? A long pause, punctuated by a hitch in her breath. “I hated you, because I <em> knew </em> you could hear me.” A few tears escaped despite her best efforts, dripping steadily onto the varnished wood.</p>
<p>Lilith looked up. “I have no excuses.”Her voice cracked, and she covered her face with her hands, her whole body shaking violently. When she spoke, the words were muffled, so quiet that Zelda could barely hear them. “I just didn’t have anything in me to give.”</p>
<p>Zelda took her into her arms wordlessly, stroking her hair. Snow beat at the window panes, and steam swirled and dissipated in the warm air of the kitchen. The daze persisted until the tea in their cups had long since grown cold.</p>
<p> </p>
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